GDG Post Google I/O 2015 Meetup: How We Did It

Lena Voitenko

Communication manager

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Last Saturday, June 27, Yalantis hosted Google Developer Group meetup that we announced earlier. This event was devoted to Google I/O 2015, new innovations from Google and, of course, Android. We invited four speakers from Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, and Cherkasy to share their first-hand impressions about the greatest Google’s conference that they visited in May this year.

Our lovely office opened its doors to over 80 Android developers who came here to get new information, exchange knowledge, and try out new gadgets that the participants of the meetup brought from the land of the Free and the home of the Brave.

We all got a chance to dive into virtual reality using Google cardboards, try on Moto 360 powered by Android Wear, manipulate the presentation using Myo Gesture Control Armband, check out the abilities of a magic NFC ring, and even have an exclusive meeting with Android M on board of Nexus 9.

What did we speak about?

The meetup was opened by Vladimir Ivanov, founder and coordinator at GDG Kyiv. He mentioned Google[x], is a semi-secret facility run by Google dedicated to making major technological advancements, and Advanced Technologies and Projects (ATAP) group, Google's advanced research arm with an expressive motto “We like epic shit.” Vladimir talked about the most innovative projects of Google ATAP, and their extraordinary punk style.

He also shared his impression of the people behind Google’s projects, such as Clay Bavor, Astro Teller, and Regina Dugan, and their presentations at Google I/O. For example, Astro Teller, so called Google[x]'s "Captain of Moonshots” dwelled on the importance of failures in the development process. Regina Dugan, the head of the ATAP group at Google, blew everybody’s minds by sharing her plan to redesign wearables, develop modular phones, and create a replacement for passwords. She described everything ATAP does as "badass and beautiful.”

Kseniia

Shumelchyk, manager of GDG Dnipropetrovsk and co-organizer of Google’s Women in Tech, introduced the freshest news about Android M. She gave us a detailed overview of Chrome custom tabs, improved web experience, app links, Android Pay, fingerprint support, doze mode, and USB type C support – all those exciting features of the new Android M.

Irina Velychko, a member of GDG Cherkasy focused on some of the Google ATAP projects, such as Jacquard which might become a new “connected and touch-sensitive” fashion trend, Project Ara which is working on creating an open modular smartphone platform with a goal to make hardware more like software apps.

Even though we still don’t know much about the Project Ara, and its demonstration at Google I/O wasn’t largely covered in press, according to our speakers, Ara proved to be one of the most impressive projects, that Google announced this year. If one day we’ll be able to download a new camera from Google Play to our phones like they did it during the prototype demonstration, I can’t even imagine how amazing our mobile experience would become!

Roman

Herasymenko, our Android developer and a co-organizer of GDG Dnipropetrovsk, ended the session with a presentation “Android data binding, NDK development tools,” which was a purely Android app development talk.

In his speech, Roman clarified how exactly data binding library facilitates the process of developing Ul for Android by writing declarative layouts and minimizing the glue code. He also talked about the NDK toolset that allows developers to implement parts of their apps using native-code languages such as C and C++.

At the very end of the meetup, Vladimir Ivanov shared his impressions about the networking part of Google I/O 2015, and showed us a video from the event.

Google I/O 2015 is over, but we are looking forward to the more incredible events and conferences that will help us improve our knowledge of programming, and drive our ideas beyond the limits of what is possible.

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